Friday, November 30, 2012

Mistletoe is normally associated with stolen kisses during the holidays, but Australian scientists say it also has the potential to be used as an alternative therapy for sufferers of colon cancer.

At the University of Adelaide, scientists are interested in how the extract
of mistletoe could either assist chemotherapy or act as an alternative to
chemotherapy.

Colon cancer is the second greatest cause of cancer death in the Western
world. Mistletoe extract is already authorised for use by sufferers of colon
cancer in Europe.

For her Honours research project recently completed at the University of
Adelaide, Health
Sciences student Zahra Lotfollahi compared the effectiveness of three
different types of mistletoe extract and chemotherapy on colon cancer cells. She
also compared the impact of mistletoe extract and chemotherapy on healthy
intestinal cells.

In her laboratory studies, she found that one of the mistletoe extracts -
from a species known as Fraxini (which grows on ash trees) - was highly
effective against colon cancer cells and was gentler on healthy intestinal cells
compared with chemotherapy.

Significantly, Fraxini extract was found to be more potent against
cancer cells than the chemotherapy drug.
"This is an important result because we know that chemotherapy is effective
at killing healthy cells as well as cancer cells. This can result in severe
side-effects for the patient, such as oral mucositis (ulcers in the mouth) and
hair loss," Ms Lotfollahi says.

"Our laboratory studies have shown Fraxini mistletoe extract by itself
to be highly effective at reducing the viability of colon cancer cells. At
certain concentrations, Fraxini also increased the potency of
chemotherapy against the cancer cells.

"Of the three extracts tested, and compared with chemotherapy, Fraxini
was the only one that showed a reduced impact on healthy intestinal cells. This
might mean that Fraxini is a potential candidate for increased toxicity
against cancer, while also reducing potential side effects. However, more
laboratory testing is needed to further validate this work," Ms Lotfollahi
says.

"Mistletoe extract has been considered a viable alternative therapy overseas
for many years, but it's important for us to understand the science behind it,"
says one of Ms Lotfollahi's supervisors, the University of Adelaide's Professor Gordon
Howarth, a Cancer Council Senior Research Fellow.

"Although mistletoe grown on the ash tree was the most effective of the three
extracts tested, there is a possibility that mistletoe grown on other, as yet
untested, trees or plants could be even more effective.This is just the first important step in what we hope will lead to further
research, and eventually clinical trials, of mistletoe extract in Australia,"
Professor Howarth says.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This medial study is posted as information only. Ingesting parts of the mistletoe plant can be poisonous and lead to illness or death.
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As if the region hasn't had enough to contend with post-Sandy, now residents of three southern New Jersey towns are facing chemical exposure after a bridge collapsed today,
causing a freight train to derail.

Three train cars fell into a creek in Paulsboro in
Gloucester County at about 7 a.m. said officials. At least one of the cars is believed to contain vinyl chloride, a potentially hazardous chemical. Exposure can cause dizziness and harm breathing. At least 18 people have been treated for exposure.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Nearly 23 percent of American women of childbearing age met or exceeded the
median blood levels for all three environmental chemical pollutants — lead,
mercury, and PCBs — tracked in an analysis of data on thousands of women by
Brown University researchers.

All but 17.3 percent of the women aged 16 to 49
were at or above the median blood level for one or more of these chemicals,
which are passed to fetuses through the placenta and to babies through breast
milk.

The study, published in the journal
Environmental Research, identified several risk factors associated with
a higher “body burden” for two or more of these
chemicals.

The three pollutants are of greatest interest because they are pervasive and
persistent in the environment and can harm fetal and infant brain development,
albeit in different ways, said study lead author Dr. Marcella Thompson. But
scientists don’t yet know much about whether co-exposure to these three
chemicals is more harmful than exposure to each chemical alone. Most researchers
study the health effects of exposure to an individual chemical, not two or three
together.

“Our research documents the prevalence of women who are exposed to all three
of these chemicals,” said Thompson, who began the analysis as a doctoral student
at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing and has continued the
research as a postdoctoral research associate for Brown University’s Superfund
Research Program with co-author Kim Boekelheide, professor of pathology and
laboratory medicine. “It points out clearly the need to look at health outcomes
for multiple environmental chemical co-exposures.”

Most of the childbearing-age women — 55.8 percent — exceeded the median for
two or more of the three pollutants.

Risks of exposure

Data were collected between 1999 and 2004 from 3,173 women aged 16 to 49 who
participated in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Health
and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The survey was designed to represent
the national population of 134.5 million women of childbearing age. Because the
original study also elicited a wide variety of information on health behaviors,
socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, Thompson and Boekelheide were
able to identify specific risk factors associated with increased odds of having
higher blood levels of lead, mercury, and PCBs.“We
carry a history of our environmental exposures throughout our lives.”
Credit: David Orenstein/Brown UniversityThey found
several statistically significant risk factors. The most prominent among them
was age. As women grew older, their risk of exceeding the median blood level in
two or more of these pollutants grew exponentially to the point where women aged
30 to 39 had 12 times greater risk and women aged 40 to 49 had a risk 30 times
greater than those women aged 16 to 19.

Thompson said women aged 40 to 49 would be at greatest risk not only because
these chemicals accumulate in the body over time, but also because these women
were born in the 1950s and 1960s before most environmental protection laws were
enacted.

Fish and heavy alcohol consumption also raised the risk of having higher
blood levels. Women who ate fish more than once a week during the prior 30 days
had 4.5 times the risk of exceeding the median in two or more of these
pollutants. Women who drank heavily had a milder but still substantially
elevated risk.

Fish, especially top predators like swordfish and albacore tuna, are known to
accumulate high levels of mercury and PCBs, Thompson said. However, there is no
known reason why they found a statistically higher association between heavy
drinking and a higher body burden of pollutants.

One risk factor significantly reduced a woman’s risk of having elevated blood
levels of the pollutants, but it was not good news: breastfeeding. Women who had
breastfed at least one child for at least a month sometime in their lives had
about half the risk of exceeding the median blood level for two or more
pollutants. In other words, Thompson said, women pass the pollutants that have
accumulated in their bodies to their nursing infants.

Although the study did not measure whether women with higher levels of
co-exposure or their children suffered ill health effects, Thompson said, the
data still suggest that women should learn about their risks of co-exposure to
these chemicals well before they become pregnant. A woman who plans to become
pregnant in her 30s or 40s, for example, will have a high relative risk of
having higher blood levels of lead, PCBs, and mercury.

“Greenpeace welcomes Zara’s commitment to toxic-free fashion. If the
world’s biggest fashion retailer can do it, there’s no excuse for other
brands not to clean up their supply chains and make fashion without
pollution,” said Martin Hojsik, Detox Campaign Coordinator at Greenpeace
International.

The group tested 141 clothing items from major brands for nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) and carcinogenic amines from certain dyes.

NPes can break down into hormone-disrupting chemicals when released
into the environment and water supplies – as a result, some countries
have restricted the industrial use of NPEs for almost 20 years.
Greenpeace said all of the brands had several items containing NPEs,
while Zara was the only retailer selling items contaminated with both
NPEs and toxic amines.

"Some of the Zara items tested came out positive for substances that
break down to form cancer-causing or hormone-disrupting chemicals which
is unacceptable for both consumers and the people living near the
factories where these clothes are made," said Hojsik
Zara will now require at least
20 suppliers to start releasing pollution discharge data by the end of
March 2013, and at least 100 suppliers by the end of 2013. The supply
chain disclosure project will include azo dyes that give rise to cancer
causing amines.

“People around the world have spoken out against toxic fashion and
it’s now time for other brands such as Esprit, Gap and Victoria’s Secret
to listen to their customers and urgently Detox.”

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Live Capture Photo of the North Pole from From FNSB Air Quality Near-Real-Time

Particulate pollution in the North Pole has been higher than most of the 300+ cities in the continental U.S. over the last few days according to a report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Last night the particulate level peaked at 245 micrograms. The highest levels in the Lower 48 states today is 69 at Olympia, Washington.

The forecast for today for North Pole remains "very unhealthy," with a warming that states: "People
with respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children should avoid
any outdoor activity; everyone else should avoid prolonged exertion."

Fine particle pollution is considered particularity unhealthy to breathe as it has the potential to lodge deep into the lungs. Once inhaled, these particles can affect the heart and lungs and cause serious health effects.

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We may want to start reconsidering where we like to spend our down time. Scientists are reporting today that more furniture manufacturers are using flame retardants in our couches.

They analyzed 102 foam samples from couches purchased in the last seven years and found that 93 percent contained flame retardants. More than half of those couches contained untested flame retardants or retardants that have raised health concerns, including "Tris," which is considered a probable human carcinogen based on animal studies and was phased out from use in baby pajamas in 1977.

When broken down by manufacturer about 85 percent are now using flame retardants in their couches.

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Research conducted by University of Southern California (USC) and Children's Hospital Los Angeles scientists demonstrates that polluted air -- whether regional pollution or coming from local traffic sources -- is associated with autism.

Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, during pregnancy and during the first year of a child's life appears to be associated with an increased risk of autism, according to a new report published by Archives of General Psychiatry.

Researchers at the University of Southern California, looked at the
relationship between traffic-related air pollution, air quality and
autism in a study that included 279 children with
autism and control group of 245 children with typical development.

"Exposures to traffic-related air pollution, PM [particulate matter] and
nitrogen dioxide were associated with an increased risk of autism.
These effects were observed using measures of air pollution with
variation on both local and regional levels, suggesting the need for
further study to understand both individual pollutant contributions and
the effects of pollutant mixtures on disease," the authors comment.

The authors used mothers' addresses to estimate exposure for each pregnancy trimester and for a child's first year of life. Children living in homes with the highest levels of
traffic-related air pollution were three times as likely to have autism
compared with children living in homes with the lowest exposure.

Autism is a diverse disorder with genetic and environmental factors likely contributing to its origins. Autism spectrum disorders are commonly characterized by problems in communication, social interaction and repetitive behaviors. Emerging evidence suggests the environment plays a role in autism, but only limited information is available about what exposures are relevant and what stages of development in which they act.

"Although additional research to replicate these findings is needed, the public health implications of these findings are large because air pollution exposure is common and may have lasting neurological effects," the authors conclude.

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In a sobering study published in the journal Environmental Health, researchers measured food-borne toxin exposure in children and adults by pinpointing foods with high levels of toxic compounds and determining how much of these foods were eaten.

The researchers found that family members in the study, and preschool children in particular, are at high risk for exposure to arsenic, dieldrin, DDE (a DDT metabolite), dioxins and acrylamide. These compounds have been linked to cancer, developmental disabilities, birth defects and other conditions.

"Contaminants get into our food in a variety of ways," said study principal investigator Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor and chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health at UC Davis. "They can be chemicals that have nothing to do with the food or byproducts from processing. We wanted to understand the dietary pathway pesticides, metals and other toxins take to get into the body."

Researchers assessed risk by comparing toxin consumption to established benchmarks for cancer risk and non-cancer health risks. All 364 children in the study (207 preschool children between two and seven and 157 school-age children between five and seven) exceeded cancer benchmarks for arsenic, dieldrin, DDE and dioxins. In addition, more than 95 percent of preschool children exceeded non-cancer risk levels for acrylamide, a cooking byproduct often found in processed foods like potato and tortilla chips. Pesticide exposure was particularly high in tomatoes, peaches, apples, peppers, grapes, lettuce, broccoli, strawberries, spinach, dairy, pears, green beans and celery.

"We focused on children because early exposure can have long-term effects on disease outcomes," said Rainbow Vogt, lead author of the study. "Currently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only measures risk based on exposures of individual contaminants. We wanted to understand the cumulative risk from dietary contaminants. The results of this study demonstrate a need to prevent exposure to multiple toxins in young children to lower their cancer risk."

Perhaps most disturbing, preschool-age children had higher exposure to more than half the toxic compounds being measured. Even relatively low exposures can greatly increase the risk of cancer or neurological impairment.

"We need to be especially careful about children, because they tend to be more vulnerable to many of these chemicals and their effects on the developing brain," says Hertz-Picciotto.

Though these results are cause for concern, the study also outlines strategies to lower family exposure. For example, organic produce has lower pesticide levels. In addition, toxin types vary in different foods. Certain pesticides may be found in lettuce and broccoli, while others affect peaches and apples.

"Varying our diet and our children's diet could help reduce exposure," said Hertz-Picciotto. "Because different foods are treated differently at the source, dietary variation can help protect us from accumulating too much of any one toxin."

Families also can reduce their consumption of animal meat and fats, which may contain high levels of DDE and other persistent organic pollutants, and switch to organic milk. While mercury is most often found in fish, accumulation varies greatly by species. Smaller fish, lower on the food chain, generally have lower mercury levels. In addition, acrilomides are relatively easy to remove from the diet.

"Acrilomides come from chips and other processed grains, said co-author Deborah Bennett, associate professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at UC Davis. "Even if we set aside the potential toxins in these foods, we probably shouldn't be eating large amounts of them anyway. However, we should be eating fruits, vegetables and fish, which are generally healthy foods. We just need to be more careful in how we approach them."

The study also highlights a number of policy issues, such as how we grow our food and the approval process for potentially toxic compounds. Though the pesticide DDT was banned 40 years ago, the study showed significant risk of DDE exposure.

"Given the significant exposure to legacy pollutants, society should be concerned about the persistence of compounds we are currently introducing into the environment," said Bennett. "If we later discover a chemical has significant health risks, it will be decades before it's completely removed from the ecosystem."

While the study has profound implications for dietary habits, more work needs to be done to quantify risk. Specifically, researchers need to determine how these food-borne toxins interact collectively in the body.

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Friday, November 23, 2012

Just 10 minutes spent in the car with a smoker, boosts a child’s daily exposure to harmful pollutants by up to 30%, reveals research published online in Tobacco Control.

Pollutant levels exceeded those found in restaurants, bars, and casinos, the study showed.

Children are very vulnerable to the effects of second hand smoke, because most of this occurs in cars and private homes—locations not covered by outright public bans on smoking—say the authors.

They base their findings on 22 assessments of the air quality inside a stationary vehicle after three cigarettes had been smoked over the course of an hour.

On each occasion, levels of pollutants that are normally emitted by cars as well as by cigarettes, were measured in the back seat of a vehicle at the breathing height of a child—with the front windows completely down (position 1), and again with the windows open just 10 cm (position 2).

These pollutants were also measured outside the vehicle and included particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and carbon monoxide, plus nicotine.

Exposure to PAH, in particular, has been linked to immune system disturbances, wheeze, IQ changes, and allergic sensitisation, say the authors.

The pollutant levels inside the car at both window settings were three times as high as those measured outside, the results showed.

The average particulate matter levels inside the car were 746.1 µg/m3 at position 1 and 1172.1 µg/m3 at position 2. The average size of the particulate matter was 0.3 µm.

Average levels of carbon monoxide reached 2.8 parts per million when cigarettes were extinguished, while those of PAH were around 10 times as high inside the car as they were outside.

Nicotine levels varied between 5.06 µg/m3 and 411.3 µg/m3 for both window positions inside the car.

On the basis of their findings, the authors calculate that spending even a short amount of time inside a car with a smoker would make a significant difference to a child’s daily exposure to harmful pollutants.

“Children are more vulnerable than adults, and their exposures to tobacco smoke in a vehicle are completely controlled by the adults with whom they share the vehicle,” they write.

“Although regulations have been enacted to protect non-smokers, including children in many public venues, second hand smoke exposures to children in vehicles are permitted in 44 of 50 US states, and in most countries worldwide.”

They conclude that their findings support moves to restrict this type of exposure in cars, especially those carrying children.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Living in areas of high air pollution can lead to decreased cognitive function in older adults, according to new research.

This finding is based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Health and Retirement Study.

"As a result of age-related declines in health and functioning, older adults are particularly vulnerable to the hazards of exposure to unhealthy air," said researcher Jennifer Ailshire, PhD.

"Air pollution has been linked to increased cardiovascular and respiratory problems, and even premature death, in older populations, and there is emerging evidence that exposure to particulate air pollution may have adverse effects on brain health and functioning as well."

This is the first study to show how exposure to air pollution influences cognitive function in a national sample of older men and women. It suggests that fine air particulate matter — composed of particles that are 2.5 micrometers in diameter and smaller, thought to be sufficiently small that if inhaled they can deposit deep in the lung and possibly the brain — may be an important environmental risk factor for reduced cognitive function.

The study sample included 14,793 white, black, and Hispanic men and women aged 50 and older who participated in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study (a nationally representative survey of older adults). Individual data were linked with data on 2004 annual average levels of fine air particulate matter from the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality System monitors across the country. Cognitive function was measured on a scale of 1 to 35 and consisted of tests assessing word recall, knowledge, language, and orientation.

Ailshire discovered that those living in areas with high levels of fine air particulate matter scored poorer on the cognitive function tests. The association even remained after accounting for several factors, including age, race/ethnicity, education, smoking behavior, and respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.

Fine air particulate matter exposures ranged from 4.1 to 20.7 micrograms per cubic meter, and every ten point increase was associated with a 0.36 point drop in cognitive function score. In comparison, this effect was roughly equal to that of aging three years; among all study subjects, a one-year increase in age was associated with a drop 0.13 in cognitive function score.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Does your job increase your breast cancer risk? A study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Health confirms that certain occupations do pose a higher risk of breast cancer than others, particularly those that expose the worker to potential carcinogens and endocrine disrupters.

Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer diagnosis among women in industrialized countries, and North American rates are among the highest in the world. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals and carcinogens, some of which may not have yet been classified as such, are present in many working environments and could increase breast cancer risk.

The study included 1006 breast cancer cases with 1147 randomly selected and matched community controls. Using interviews and surveys, the team collected data on participants' occupational and reproductive histories. All jobs were coded for their likelihood of exposure to carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, and patients' tumor pathology regarding endocrine receptor status was assessed.

The authors found in this group of participants that, across all sectors, women in jobs with potentially high exposures to carcinogens and endocrine disrupters had an elevated breast cancer risk. Sectors with increased risk included:

The findings also suggested that women with lower socioeconomic status had an elevated risk of breast cancer, which may result from higher exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the lower-income manufacturing and agricultural industries of the study area.

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Monday, November 19, 2012

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Friday, November 16, 2012

For decades, atmospheric scientists have been trying to explain how particles manage to transport harmful pollutants to pristine
environments thousands of miles away. Now a new study has uncovered a detail that could provide an explanation.

Researcher have long thought that pollutants coat other particles in the air, but scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory say that the pollutants actually travel inside other particles and are therefore protected from decay.

"In this study, we propose a new explanation for how polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) get
transported so far, by demonstrating that airborne particles become a
protective vessel for PAH transport," said physical chemist Alla Zelenyuk. "What we've learned through fundamental studies on model systems in the
lab has very important implications for long-range transport of
pollutants in the real world."

Floating in the air and invisible to the eye, airborne particles known as secondary organic aerosols live and die. Born from carbon-based molecules given off by trees, vegetation, and fossil fuel burning, these airborne SOA particles travel the currents and contribute to cloud formation. Along for the ride are pollutants, the PAHs.

Zelenyuk and her colleagues developed an ultra-sensitive instrument that can determine the size, composition and shape of these individual particles.

Called SPLAT II, the instrument can analyze millions of tiny particles one by one. The ability of this novel instrument to characterize individual particles provides unique insight into their property and evolution.

Using SPLAT II to evaluate laboratory-generated SOA particles from alpha-pinene, the molecule that gives pine trees their piney smell, Zelenyuk has already discovered that SOA particles aren't liquid at all. Her team's recent work revealed they are more like tar -- thick, viscous blobs that are too solid to be liquid and too liquid to be solid.

Armed with this data, Zelenyuk and researchers from Imre Consulting in Richland and the University of Washington in Seattle set out to determine the relation between the SOA particle and the PAHs. Again they used alpha-pinene for the SOA. For the PAH, they used pyrene, a toxic pollutant produced by burning fossil fuels or vegetation such as forests.

They created two kinds of particles. The first kind exemplified the classical SOA: first they produced the particles with alpha-pinene and then coated them with pyrene. The second kind resembled what likely happens in nature: they mixed alpha-pinene and pyrene and let the particles form with both molecules present. Then they sent the particles through SPLAT and watched what happened to them over time.

With the pyrene-coated particles, the team found the PAH pyrene evaporating off the surface of the particle quickly, all of it gone after four hours. By the next day, the particle itself had shrunk by about 70 percent, showing that the alpha-pinene SOA also evaporates, although more slowly than pyrene.

When they created the particles in the presence of both SOA and PAH, the PAH evaporated much more slowly. Fifty percent of the original PAH still remained in the particle after 24 hours. In addition, the SOA particle itself stayed bulky, losing less than 20 percent of its volume.

These results showed the team that PAHs become trapped within the highly viscous SOA particles, where they remain protected from the environment. The symbiotic relationship between the atmospheric particles and pollutants surprised Zelenyuk: SOAs help PAHs travel the world, and the PAHs help SOAs survive longer.

Zelenyuk and her colleagues performed comparable experiments with other PAHs and SOAs and found similar results.

In the real world, Zelenyuk said, the evaporation will be even slower. These results will help modelers better simulate atmospheric SOA particles and transport of pollutants over long distances.

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Researchers at the University of Copenhagen say maternal vitamin C deficiency during pregnancy can have serious, irreversible consequences for the foetal brain.

“Even marginal vitamin C deficiency in the mother stunts the foetal
hippocampus, the important memory centre, by 10-15 per cent, preventing
the brain from optimal development,” says Professor Jens Lykkesfeldt.

Population studies show that between 10-20 per cent of all
adults in the developed world suffer from vitamin C deficiency.
Therefore, pregnant women should think twice about omitting the daily
vitamin pill.

For their study the scientists studied pregnant guinea pigs and their pups. Just like humans, guinea
pigs cannot produce vitamin C themselves.

“We used to think that the mother could protect the baby. Ordinarily there is a selective transport from mother to foetus of the substances the baby needs during pregnancy. However, it now appears that the transport is not sufficient in the case of vitamin C deficiency. Therefore it is extremely important to draw attention to this problem, which potentially can have serious consequences for the children affected,” says Jens Lykkesfeldt.

The study has also shown that the damage done to the foetal brain cannot be repaired, even if the baby is given vitamin C after birth.

When the vitamin C deficient guinea pig pups were born, scientists divided them into two groups and gave one group vitamin C supplements. However, when the pups were two months old, which corresponds to teenage in humans, there was still no improvement in the group that had been given supplements.

The scientists are now working to find out how early in the pregnancy vitamin C deficiency influences the development of foetal guinea pigs. Preliminary results show that the impact is already made early in the pregnancy, as the foetuses were examined in the second and third trimesters. Scientists hope in the long term to be able to use population studies to illuminate the problem in humans.

The scientists emphasized that if pregnant women eat a varied diet, do not smoke, and for instance take a multi-vitamin tablet daily during pregnancy, there is no reason to fear vitamin C deficiency.

“Because it takes so little to avoid vitamin C deficiency, it is my hope that both politicians and the authorities will become aware that this can be a potential problem,” concludes Jens Lykkesfeldt.

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

An international research team including scientists from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine has discovered a link between a mutation in an immune system gene and Alzheimer's disease.

Using data from 25,000 people, researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and University College London's Institute of Neurology discovered that a rare genetic mutation in the TREM2 gene — which helps trigger immune system responses — is also associated with increased risk of Alzheimer's. The discovery supports an emerging theory about the role of the immune system in the disease.

"This discovery provides an increasingly firm link between brain inflammation and increased risk for Alzheimer's," says Dr. Peter St George-Hyslop, director of U of T's Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. "This is an important step towards unraveling the hidden causes of this disease, so that we can develop treatments and interventions to end one of the 21st century's most significant health challenges."

St George-Hyslop, renowned for identifying five genes associated with Alzheimer's disease, says the breakthrough is, "another win for U of T scientists who are building on a worldwide legacy of expertise in neurodegenerative research."

The team began by sequencing the genes of 1,092 people with Alzheimer's and a control group of 1,107 healthy people. The results showed several mutations in the TREM2 gene occurred more frequently in people who had the disease than in those without the disease. One mutation – known as R47H – had a particularly strong association with the disease.

The mutation makes a patient three times more likely to develop the disease, although it affects just 0.3 per cent of the population.

"While the genetic mutation we found is extremely rare, its effect on the immune system is a strong indicator that this system may be a key player in the disease," says Dr. Rita Geurreiro from UCL, the study's lead author.

The study is published now in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Researchers at the National Institutes of Health are reporting that couples with high levels of PCBs and similar environmental pollutants
take longer to conceive a child.

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are chemicals that have been used as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment. They are part of a category of chemicals known as persistent organochlorine pollutants and include industrial chemicals and chemical byproducts as well as pesticides.

The compounds are also resistant to decay, and may persist in the environment for decades. Some, known as persistent lipophilic organochlorine pollutants, accumulate in fatty tissues. Another type, called perfluorochemicals, are used in clothing, furniture, adhesives, food packaging, heat-resistant non-stick cooking surfaces, and the insulation of electrical wire.

Exposure to these chemical pollutants is known to have a number of effects on human health, but their effects on human fertility-- and the likelihood of couples achieving pregnancy-- have not been extensively studied.

To conduct the study, the researchers enrolled 501 couples from four counties in Michigan, and 12 counties in Texas, from 2005 to 2009. Couples provided blood samples for the analysis of organochlorines (PCBs) and perfluorochemicals (PFCs). Women kept journals to record their monthly menstrual cycles and the results of home pregnancy tests. The couples were followed until pregnancy or for up to one year of trying.

For each standardized increase in chemical concentration the researchers measured, the odds of pregnancy declined by 18 to 21 percent for females exposed to PCB congeners 118, 167, 209, and the perfluorchemical, perfluorooctane sulfonamide. Perfluorooctane sulfonamide is one of a broad class of compounds known as perfluoroalkyls, which have been used in fire fighting foams.

With increasing exposure, the odds for pregnancy declined by 17 to 29 percent for couples in which males were exposed to PCB congeners 138, 156, 157, 167, 170, 172, and 209 and to DDE, produced when the pesticide DDT degrades in the environment. DDT is banned for use in the United States, but is still used in some countries.

The investigators noted that they cannot rule out that some of the delays they observed may have been due to exposure to multiple chemicals. They added that these associations would need to be confirmed by other researchers.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

A new study shows that people who have had a head injury and have lived or worked near areas where the pesticide paraquat was used may be three times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

Paraquat is a herbicide commonly used on crops to control weeds. It can be deadly to humans and animals.

“While each of these two factors is associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s on their own, the combination is associated with greater risk than just adding the two factors together,” said study author Beate Ritz, MD, PhD, of UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health.

“This study suggests that the physiological process that is triggered by a head injury may increase brain cells’ vulnerability to attacks from pesticides that can be toxic to the brain or the other way around, for example, chronic low dose exposure to pesticides may increase the risk of Parkinson’s after a head injury.”

The study involved 357 people with Parkinson’s disease and 754 people without the disease, all of whom lived in an agricultural area in central California. The participants reported any head injuries they had ever received with a loss of consciousness for more than five minutes.

The researchers determined participants’ exposure to the weed killer based on a 500-meter area around their home and work addresses, using a geographic information system (GIS) that combined data on paraquat use collected by the state of California’s Pesticide Use Reporting system with land use maps.

People with Parkinson’s disease were twice as likely to have had a head injury with loss of consciousness for more than five minutes as people who did not have the disease. Of the 357 people with Parkinson’s disease, 42, or 12 percent, reported ever having had such a head injury, compared to 50 of the 754 people without the disease, or 7 percent.

People with Parkinson’s disease were 36 percent more likely to have exposure to paraquat than those who did not have the disease. Of those with Parkinson’s, 169 had exposure to the weed killer, or 47 percent, compared to 291 of those without the disease, or 39 percent.

The study was published in medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Americans spend over 500 million dollars a year on air
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Pet Odors

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New Home, Upgrades or
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A few years ago scientists revealed that the “new car” smell
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The information presented in this blog is basic and general in nature. It should never replace the advice of a medical professional. Always consult your medical practitioner for advice concerning your particular health concern.